Summer Sang in Me
by Min Daae
Summary: Mya is everything Sansa misses. Post AFFC.


Mya found her curled up in her winter cloak and crying very quietly. She tucked her face into the fur trim so that her tears were invisible and chewed her lip so they were silent. It was cold. She was cold. Mya stopped in the doorway.

"Huh," she said, and Sansa felt a flush of acute shame that she was so weak. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and Mya's expression was soundly displeased.

"I've told you before," she said. "You don't have to apologize to me. I'm not _angry. _You just usually come down to the stables around this time and you didn't."

"I'm sorry," Sansa said again, and Mya frowned at her. Sansa half opened her mouth to apologize again, realized what she was doing, and let out a wet giggle. Mya smiled slightly and crossed the room to sit down next to Sansa, on the floor.

"Can't you tell Harry?" she said, quietly. "Isn't that what he's supposed to do, protect you?"

Sansa shook her head. "He knows it's only because of Petyr that he gets anything, any power. He won't say anything. He'd probably only be angry with me." She ducked her head down and hid her eyes in the fur, crying a few more tears. "I think I hate him," she whispered, barely audible.

"Harry?"

"No," she said. "Petyr." She glanced nervously toward the door. Mya looked with her, and shrugged.

"That's fine with me. You can hate whoever you want." She paused. "As long as it's not me."

Sansa looked up quickly. "I don't hate you," she protested, and Mya laughed a little.

"I know that. I was teasing."

"Oh," Sansa said, and flushed a little. She stayed curled up, though, tense and unhappy. Mya frowned, more to herself than anything.

"Alayne," she said, "Do you want to go down to the stables? See the mules. It's fairly warm, and no one's going to come looking for you there."

"I want to go home," Sansa said petulantly, without really thinking about it, and then remembered that this was supposed to be home, that her _real _home was ruined and gone and empty and cold. And so, so far away. She missed Winterfell, then, with a fierce pain that was almost an ache in her belly.

"To the Eyrie?" Mya asked, seeming puzzled, and Sansa meant to shake her head but only nodded.

"Things were better there," she whispered, not meaning the Eyrie at all. Mya made a face.

"It's not very pleasant there during the winter, though. We were late getting down one year, and it wasn't like this but it was blowing hard enough to shake us off the mountain." She shook her head. "You'd rather be here, where there's fires and warmth."

_Not real warmth, though, _Sansa wanted to say, _Not like the hot springs in Winterfell warming the stones and the earth and there was the snow outside but I was never cold, not like this. _

"I guess it is winter now," Mya said, after a moment. "It'll be cold wherever you are. Probably even in the south. In _Dorne _even."

"I wish we could just go to the Eyrie by ourselves," Sansa said. "Just the two of us, and maybe Myranda. And live there with no one else, for the whole winter."

Mya shook her head. "How would you get food?" Sansa lifted her head out of the cloak and smiled, warming to her idea.

"Ravens," she said, "We would train ravens to fetch us food from down below."

"We'd die before the winter was over," Mya said practically, and Sansa frowned at her.

"You're no good at pretend."

"I don't want to pretend," Mya countered. "Pretend doesn't get you anywhere." She didn't say it to be unkind, but it stung anyway, and Sansa ducked her face back down and sniffled. She was right, of course. Mya usually was. Where had Sansa's pretends gotten her, after all?

"Sometimes I'd rather be nowhere than here," she said, quietly, and Mya sighed a little and reached up to touch her shoulder, awkwardly. But she meant it, and that made it all right. Mya always meant what she said. She didn't lie.

"It'll get better," Mya said. "It will. Once you're really married."

_Once I'm Sansa Stark again, _Sansa thought, _but I'll never be Sansa Stark again, not really. I don't even really remember who she was. _"I wish I could marry you," she said, on an impulse, and Mya laughed, a quick and startled sound.

"What?"

"I like you," Sansa insisted. "You're honest and nice and brave. I don't like Harry the Heir."

"He's not so bad," Mya protested, but she didn't sound all that sincere. Sansa shook her head.

"I'd rather marry you."

Mya was quiet for a few moments, and Sansa got down off the bench to sit next to her on the floor and lean her head on Mya's shoulder. She smelled like warmth. And mules. Mya shifted, but only enough to make it more comfortable.

"Maybe we could run away," Sansa said. "Go north together. And live in a little house, you and me and some mules."

"You're pretending again," Mya said, but she didn't sound like she was really scolding, or like she really meant it.

"I know," Sansa said, hushed, and kind of wanted to cry again. Mya hesitated, and then put her arm around her shoulders.

"All right," she said. "If we went north together, you and me and some mules. What would we do?"

"We could open an inn," Sansa said, heartened. "And we would take in people who were lost, and help them find their way. But mostly it would just be us. And then one day-" Her breath hitched, a little, and Mya's arm around her shoulders tightened slightly.

"One day what?"

"Someone would come by, and they would say, 'my ladies-'"

"I'm not a lady," Mya cut in, and Sansa frowned at her. She looked slightly chastened.

"Fine, they'd say, 'Alayne and Mya Stone, the queen Cersei is dead, and it's all been a terrible mistake, and your family isn't dead at all-" Her voice broke. Mya blinked.

"Your family?" She said. "I thought…"

"I had a sister," Alayne lied quickly. "And some brothers. But they…they died."

"Oh," said Mya. "I'm…sorry."

Sansa pulled her knees to her chest. "It's all right," she said, and took a deep breath. "And then," she said, "We'd go to live in a big castle with my family and me and you and some mules – and anyone you want to have there, too," she added graciously. Mya shrugged.

"You and the mules'll do fine for me."

"And then we'd be happy," Sansa finished, and therewere tears rolling down her cheeks, and that was _stupid, _which reminded her of Arya and that hurt all over again. "We'd be happy forever and ever and no one would ruin it. Ever."

Mya was quiet for a few moments. "That's not such a bad pretend," she said, finally.

Sansa sniffed, turning her face away so that Mya wouldn't see she was crying. "I think about it sometimes," she said, hushed. "When I'm going to sleep. It doesn't make anything better, but sometimes it gives me good dreams."

"I guess there's nothing wrong with dreams," Mya said, somewhat awkwardly. "It's okay."

Sansa turned her head and looked at Mya's face where she seemed to be watching the doorway. She thought about kissing the corner of Mya's mouth, or kissing her really. Mya was safe, and warm, and everything Sansa missed. "Thank you," she whispered instead.

"You're welcome," Mya said, after a moment, still awkward, but she looked back down and met Sansa's eyes. "Do you want to go to the stables now?"

Sansa reached out and found Mya's hand and held it, interlacing her fingers with Mya's. Her palm was rough and calloused on Sansa's skin. It felt comforting. "I think I'd like that," she said quietly.


End file.
